TOUGH POLL NUMBERS FOR ROWLAND

With a new poll reporting that 55 percent of Connecticut residents think he should resign, Gov. John G. Rowland is expected to apologize again today for lying about the renovations to his summer cottage.

In a major speech that could be the most important of his long political career, Rowland is expected to articulate his steadfast determination to remain in office.

He will deliver his message before the Middlesex County Chamber of Commerce only hours after a new poll from the University of Connecticut shows that 88 percent of respondents believe his conduct was either unethical or criminal.

The poll of 645 state residents over the past two days also reports that 74 percent believe there is more information about the cottage scandal that Rowland has not disclosed.

And while 52 percent of those surveyed said they think the Republican Party should be pressuring Rowland to step down, 75 percent said the state legislature should not begin impeachment proceedings until several ongoing investigations are complete.

Word had trickled back to Rowland's staff early Tuesday night regarding the preliminary poll results. UConn poll director Ken Dautrich released them officially at about 10:15 p.m.

The first part of the governor's speech today is expected to address the controversy over expensive improvements to the Bantam Lake vacation cottage that were completed or paid for by state employees and contractors who do business with the state. Weeks of questions about the work became a crisis for the governor Friday when he admitted lying at a Dec. 2 news conference where he insisted he paid for all the work himself.

"He's going to once again apologize for the mistakes he's made, especially in the past few weeks," said an informed Republican.

"Needless to say, admissions of political corruption don't play well with citizens, and so it's not so surprising that a majority feel the governor should resign," Dautrich said. "But that figure can change dramatically as this story plays out," he said.

The UConn poll found that 56 percent of those surveyed felt that Rowland's acceptance of free work and gifts is "a very serious problem," but even more -- 73 percent -- viewed his lying as "very serious."

Unlike the State of the State speech and the annual budget address, Rowland is crafting today's speech largely by himself. Revisions on the speech were still being made Tuesday, and even Rowland's top aides had not seen a final draft.

"Something like this he has to write himself," an aide said. "It's very personal."

Rowland's speech today in Cromwell will be his first major appearance since his admissions that he lied about receiving thousands of dollars in free work at his waterfront cottage in Litchfield. He will be speaking to a friendly audience of more than 700 chamber members who traditionally laugh at his jokes and receive him warmly.

Rowland has declined interviews with newspaper reporters and turned down a chance to appear on Cable News Network's "Inside Politics" show that is televised nationally.

Despite the calls by three newspapers for him to resign and the negative results of the UConn poll, Rowland is strongly determined to stay in office, his closest supporters say.

Rowland's steadfastness is being compared with his posture in the long-running battle with the state-employee unions during budget talks earlier this year. During the agonizing struggle to close the state's projected $900 million deficit, Democrats, union members, and political observers constantly predicted for months that Rowland would be forced to negotiate with the unions in order to solve the state's seemingly intractable budget impasse. It never happened.

And while Rowland's aides repeatedly said that he would never negotiate with the unions while they had a pending federal lawsuit against him, few at the Capitol believed it.

In the same way, many believe now that Rowland cannot possibly hold onto his job, while supporters say he simply will not quit.

The only way Rowland would leave office, they said, would be impeachment. Short of that, they say, he will not leave voluntarily.

In another development, Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman refused Tuesday to call for the governor to step down. In the same way, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, a Democrat who has known Rowland for many years, also declined to call for Rowland's ouster.

"John and I have known each other a long time," said Lieberman, who once received a campaign contribution from Rowland. "I'm sad about this, and I'm disappointed. ... This is a situation where I don't know all the details. It's developing. Gov. Rowland has to make a judgment, and he will."

When asked if Rowland had done anything wrong, Lieberman said, "I don't think there's been any law-breaking specifically alleged. He didn't tell the truth, but he has admitted that."

As the FBI and federal prosecutors continue their ongoing investigation into bid-rigging in the Rowland administration, top Democratic leaders said they had been asked by authorities to avoid holding their own legislative investigation. That effort, lawmakers said, could duplicate and potentially disrupt the federal investigation.

Despite calls by five Democratic lawmakers for Rowland's impeachment that would begin in the House, Speaker Moira K. Lyons has avoided calling for Rowland's removal through a long and difficult impeachment process.

"We are concerned about the reputation of the state," Lyons said. "A trust has been broken."

POLL RESULTS

Here are the main findings of a UConn poll released Tuesday surveying state residents about Gov. John Rowland's cottage controversy:

55 percent say Rowland should resign following his admission Friday that he received free work on his Litchfield cottage from state officials and a major state contractor. 37 percent say Rowland should remain governor.

30 percent believe the governor committed a crime. Another 58 percent feel that Rowland's behavior, while not criminal, was unethical.

74 percent believe there is more information that Rowland has not revealed, while 12 percent feel he has been completely forthright.

56 percent view Rowland's acceptance of free work and gifts as a "very serious" problem. 73 percent rated his initial act of providing incorrect and incomplete information as "very serious."

The UConn Center for Survey Research and Analysis poll was a telephone survey of a scientific sample of 645 state residents conducted Dec. 15-16. Sampling error is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.